How to deal with exploding population

[contributor]

So just getting into Phase 2 now. I have to admit, that i didn't play P1 as much as I could have. I'm still struggling with planets whose population just explodes. It makes me leary of colonizing new worlds. In two games certain planets have just had no way of keeping up with the boom. Sometimes new planets go up higher than my existing original planets. A couple of planets got as much as 3 population behind in their ability to build Habs. In every case I've had money to get them going on a new hab, but they just can't build fast enough.

I think I've discovered that Cadar gets extra CP, which helps a lot. What are other strategies that people use. Once a planet already has 1 morale it seems like I might as well build a mine or something because that will get me more CP and I'll eventually be able to build a Spice Den. Also what does the entertains 5 population mean on the Spice Halls? It seems like sometimes they start bringing morale back up, but other times it doesn't work. If a planets pop is over 5 do they not work?

[d34thspawn]

I think if they are still over populated then spice dens don't help and if you have higher population than the spice den entertains you wont see as much of or any benefit? Need confirmation on that one.

The best way I have found to deal with over population is to start new colonies with cadar until you have the income to deal with the morale hit from the slower building Syndicates, i usually say to hell with moral on new colonies and hammer put a factory first, it takes forever but by the time you finish it you will have 3 corpse a turn instead and will be able to pump the hab units out faster, then once I get within one population of being under control I build a chancellary instead since they still support one population and also entertain 5 they help with moral and population, then I get the whole workforce to work with more factories and start pumping put mines as they get happier, the factory first is a huge morale hit but you at least can then build things with the angry population Lol. Idk, it has worked for me so far. Lower quality planets make this harder as you then have to be careful to not go over that while pumping out hab units to keep up, sometimes you will have a planet that's all hab units a factory or two and one mine but 20 minerals it's just how it goes!

[Officer Genious]

Here's what I said to John Robinson on my strategy for planet construction:

I build a few mines on diff planets, let the populations get to around five or six before I start sending out colonial ships. Make it more like 7 or 8 for De Valtos (Cory Trese Don't even try, we ALL know they have a Bacchus sacred holiday every day, ergo constant population booms. No lie.). But more specifically I prioritize based on the ruling faction:

Cadar: A mine and then a factory if I researched it. They seem to have the slowest population booms, so it may be a while before that second hab unit gets filled. In the meantime, if I'm ahead of the curve (waiting on a population boom or construction from other planets), I'll invest in a strike fighter. The bonus CP of Cadar means that they can push these out very quickly, so if something does come up for Cadar, it doesn't take more than two or three turns to finish a project.

De Valtos: Houses and more houses! I think it may be better to stay two homes ahead for De Valtos instead of one for everyone else. I've seen them suddenly go from 6 or 7 to 10 within a handful of turns, and morale dropped so low that no one felt like building the houses. Just got through with 2 morale left, and it skyrocketed as fast as it dropped with new shiny houses to look at. O.o Anyway, I'd focus on housing first as De Valtos's power is its population: people=money+espionage/political points. After that, I'd look at making some factories (otherwise you just have a cranky population uninterested in helping themselves), and make a few colony ships to slow (but sadly, not to subtract) from population booms.

Rychart: I have a bit of trouble or with these guys, but it should be a few homes and spice dens before factories as they're happy to spend all their time imbibing spice. Build enough factories to keep with the population, make a spice den or two to get some precious research points and toss a mine in there when you're bored.


I think that sums it up.

I found that specializing factions is very, very important. Spice halls raise morale, and more importantly give espionage/spy points for politics. It would work only on 5 of # on planet; not only on 5 pop planets. You may just need to build more than one, or mix them with other upgrades that also boost population.

Oh, and mines will get you about $15 per turn, but NOT CP. Factories (when = to workers, such as 7/7 in the bar under factories) will get you a certain amount of CP per person. In phase one it was 1 CP per 1 pop, now it's 2 CP per 2 pop (thank goodness!!).

[contributor]

I looks like the Chancellery no longer gives an entertainment bonus. So you have to build Spice Halls to get a bonus. I'm also finding that if your population is 5 or over you need two spice halls to improve the morale at all. It's sort of frustrating as some planets go up to 6 population really quickly and I spend the first 50 turns just trying to get some sort of handle on a new colony. In two games on normal I'm really sucking at this whole economy thing. I can do the econ, but then once I start building any ships they just suck out too much in maintenance and then I can't keep up building habs and spice halls to keep people happy. By the end of the 3rd year both games are getting pretty close to getting over run by the alien hordes. I'm thinking they have totally different rules than we do. I watched them colonize a planet and like 5 turns later crank out ship. Maybe building warships raises their morale? That would be somewhat understandable.

[fallen]

We worked on tempering the over-population issue in P2, and we will keep working on improving. I would warn that Spice Halls are expensive in terms of maintenance, and piling them up on a planet may not be the best way to prepare your economy for fleet-bearing. Have you looked into Spice Festivals as a cheap and non-lasting way to raise Morale after you've straightened out the primary cause?

I find that the planets that do happen to "get away" from me in population take a long time to straighten out, but once they do they are usually pretty good economies, as they have a lot of folk living there and you can load in some factories and bank.

Thanks for the feedback, you know we will keep working on it! We are working on adding some advisors who will be able to give higher level detail on colony / empire economy.

[contributor]

What do I need for a Spice Festival? I haven't seen them yet.

[Cory Trese]

May 11, 2014 10:30:20 GMT -5 contributor said:

I looks like the Chancellery no longer gives an entertainment bonus. So you have to build Spice Halls to get a bonus. I'm also finding that if your population is 5 or over you need two spice halls to improve the morale at all. It's sort of frustrating as some planets go up to 6 population really quickly and I spend the first 50 turns just trying to get some sort of handle on a new colony. In two games on normal I'm really sucking at this whole economy thing. I can do the econ, but then once I start building any ships they just suck out too much in maintenance and then I can't keep up building habs and spice halls to keep people happy. By the end of the 3rd year both games are getting pretty close to getting over run by the alien hordes. I'm thinking they have totally different rules than we do. I watched them colonize a planet and like 5 turns later crank out ship. Maybe building warships raises their morale? That would be somewhat understandable.

I think have an active adviser and tutorial will help the confusion about the arrival of your Faction population.

* Population is the core engine for your economy. You've got to shift your thinking to collecting Population points rather than "dealing" with them.
* If you keep population under housing, moral will raise normally on any planet where you have not exceeded Quality.
* Spice halls are critical to raising morale on badly polluted planets (over 100% on Quality.)

If Population manage is giving you trouble, try a strategy of keeping all planets at Housing = Population + 2 especially effective for the first two years or so. This means you are building TONS of "Hab Unit I" all the time. That's fine, they're cheap.

You can make plenty of money off Faction tithes, selling Trade Permits, running the Board of Reputation. Every population point you house will produce around $10 / turn. Using this approach, you will be priming your economy for a revolution when population growth slows and you turn to Factory and Mines. At that point, you've got the main resources you need (Credits from the Population) and idle Faction workers. You can quickly ramp up to big fleet maintenance dollars.


My normal question -- what difficulty are you playing on?

[contributor]

I'm playing on normal.

What I'm saying though is that there's always a few planets where you just can't keep up with population even if you constantly build Hab Units. Unless your dealing with a Cadar planet, you start with 1 CP and long before ten turns the population is jumping up. Then your morale drops to 1 and all you're doing is adding unhappy population, which I'm sure is not good for your economy. If you stop to build a spice hall you'll never catch up with housing and before you know it you've got 6 population and Spice Hall doesn't do jack for you anyways.

Is it possible that pop grows faster on Normal and what is meant to be a bonus (faster pop growth) actually becomes a liability?

[Cory Trese]

May 11, 2014 12:09:30 GMT -5 contributor said:

I'm playing on normal.

What I'm saying though is that there's always a few planets where you just can't keep up with population even if you constantly build Hab Units. Unless your dealing with a Cadar planet, you start with 1 CP and long before ten turns the population is jumping up. Then your morale drops to 1 and all you're doing is adding unhappy population, which I'm sure is not good for your economy. If you stop to build a spice hall you'll never catch up with housing and before you know it you've got 6 population and Spice Hall doesn't do jack for you anyways.

Is it possible that pop grows faster on Normal and what is meant to be a bonus (faster pop growth) actually becomes a liability?

Nope. Population growth and Morale loss on Normal are much slower than on Impossible.

I've played both, Impossible is pretty mean but still manageable.

Normal and Easy feel simple to control. I wonder what we're doing differently.

[contributor]

Do you not have planets that just grow to 6 or 7 in 40 or 50 turns? Maybe colonists just like me more?

[kyleobrien]

contributor I had a De Valtos outpost like that. I was waging war against Xenos and I get notified that the planet was unhappy. Being the good ruler I am I was gonna fix it. Except the pop was 7 and I had 5 habs. I couldn't keep up. Finally I gave up...oh well.

[Cory Trese]

May 11, 2014 12:28:24 GMT -5 contributor said:

Do you not have planets that just grow to 6 or 7 in 40 or 50 turns? Maybe colonists just like me more?

Let me run a few games and I will see how many turns it takes to hit 6 on average.

Phase 2 includes a new set of rules, so I would focus on games played in that version.

[Officer Genious]

May 11, 2014 12:09:30 GMT -5 contributor said:

I'm playing on normal.

What I'm saying though is that there's always a few planets where you just can't keep up with population even if you constantly build Hab Units. Unless your dealing with a Cadar planet, you start with 1 CP and long before ten turns the population is jumping up. Then your morale drops to 1 and all you're doing is adding unhappy population, which I'm sure is not good for your economy. If you stop to build a spice hall you'll never catch up with housing and before you know it you've got 6 population and Spice Hall doesn't do jack for you anyways.

Is it possible that pop grows faster on Normal and what is meant to be a bonus (faster pop growth) actually becomes a liability?

Wait, you're in phase one? Does the opening screen of the game have a version number on it? 

[fallen]

Officer Genious - the first post in the thread says he is playing in P2.

[Officer Genious]

It does, but I thought Phase 2 planets started with factories for two?